Renault has a burning ambition to produce electric cars that cost the same as equivalently sized petrol models.
Through its subsidiary Ampere, which is now listed as a separate EV and software company, the French brand has a clear roadmap to achieving this with two cost effective platforms spawning new products that are both nostalgic and forward looking.
We’ve already seen the Renault 5 and Renault 4 concept cars, which will soon spawn production versions, and now the company has pulled the covers off its reincarnated Twingo design study.
Like its aforementioned siblings, it remains a concept car for now, but the company is planning to put something similar into showrooms by 2026, with a price tag of less than 20,000 euro (R395,000), in its home market of Europe.
The reborn Renault 5, set to be revealed in production form in early 2024, is set to have a starting price of around 25,000 euro (R493,000).
While the latter will compete head on with traditional, Clio-sized B-segment vehicles, the Twingo is even smaller. Renault describes it as a “fit-for-purpose urban vehicle” with best-in-class efficiency, at 10 kWh per 100km.
Its looks are undeniably retro, harking back unashamedly to the first-generation model of 1993, and bearing little resemblance to the second-gen of 2007 or the rear-engined third incarnation of 2014.
According to Renault’s calculations the new city hatch will, over its life cycle, produce 75% lower CO2 emissions than the average European combustion engined car sold in 2023.
Underpinning the new generation of electric Renaults are two platforms called AmpR Small and AmpR Medium, which were previously called CMF-B EV and CMF-EV.
Through these architectures the company is aiming for a 50% reduction on battery cost per vehicle as well as a 25% reduction on the powertrain and overall platform cost.
In addition to all the new Renault products, the Ampere arm will also produce the next-generation Micra for Nissan, a new model for Mitsubishi as well as two Alpine high performance products.